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How to Train My Dragon. Lesson 3: Water Exposure.

So ultimately, the goal is to train my new baby kitten to be as epic and outdoorsy as we are. Using lots of research and trial by error I’m taking (hopefully) the right steps to preparing him for the outdoors.

I believe in learning from our failures and braving the things that scare us. I hope that I can impart these beliefs onto my little Dragon.

It’s been basically a week since Dragon became a part of my family. From the beginning we have started toilet training him immediately, by placing his little in the CitiKitty toilet trainer into the toilet bowl. Along with a lot of praise and consistency I am proud to say that Dragon is on his way to being toilet trained. It will probably take about two months in total give or take a couple weeks, and I anticipate set backs along the way.

It has been extremely successful so far except for one pee accident where I caught him assuming the position on the area rug just to interrupt him mid stream and spraying a lovely arc over my laminate flooring and stretching mat. Then also a poop accident which was entirely my fault because I forgot to put the toilet seat lid back up after cleaning his litter.

The other thing I haven’t mentioned, was that the first day Dragon arrived I also placed a harness on him. The reason I did this immediately was because since everything was already new, scary and overwhelming I might as well get it over with.

I am so glad I did. It’s been a week and except for a couple occasions of him trying to bite at the collar part of the harness, he doesn’t even know it’s there.

How to Get My Cat to Like Water?

Now I’ve moved onto the next step. To be honest this step begun a few days ago but I didn’t want to overwhelm the audience with all the training tips.

One of the major goals is to get Dragon accustomed to water. As many people are aware cats do not like water. Many people also know – there are exceptions to every rule.

One of the biggest things I’ve been emphasizing is praise and handling. I’ve been very intentional with my cooing and praising for good deeds such as eating, peeing, pooping and just being awesome. I scratch and pet him constantly while giving praise and this has resulted in a kitty that purrs all the time. Pretty much every time I contact him he’s purring.

Step 1. Read Your Kitty.

That brings me to reading your kitty. What I mean is that you should not move onto a new lesson or trick before you’ve had positive response from the previous ones. Since he’s being super accepting of my touch and praise, evident through incessant purring I believed this to be a good time to teach him about water.

Step 2. Praise and Pet.

Praise and pet your kitty until you here those purring motors going. At this point you should have drawn 1″ of warm water into the sink.

Step 3. Lower Kitty into water.

While giving your kitty the most amount of love you can give gently but firmly lower his paws into the water. He will meow. He will scurry. Stay strong and keep praising and petting.

Step 4. Wait for Submission.

Once kitty stops whining and relaxes for at least 3 seconds, remove him/ her immediately while continuing the praising and petting and dry him off with a soft towel.

Step 5. Imprint happiness.

Soon as you can start playing with your kitty with their favourite toy. This will help them associate the crappy water feeling with happy loving feelings of playing, praising and petting.
Remember, this is just from my personal experience with one cat. So far I’ve had some great results. Today was his third time being exposed to water and he remained still for 5 seconds. Which is a major improvement from the first two attempts.